Young supporter reunited with Canary toy after appeal

A Norwich City fan has praised the generosity of the Football Club and a fellow supporter after his nine-year-old daughter was reunited with her favourite Canaries toy.

Simon Fuller appealed for help from fans on Facebook after his daughter Elise lost her Nowich City pig on a family day out at Joyland fun park in Great Yarmouth.

And after seeing the post online, both Norwich City Football Club and Canaries supporter Denise Palmer responded to the call offering a replacement.

Mr Fuller said: “My daughter has had the pig for most of her life and takes it everywhere with her. She was extremely distraught on the drive home after losing it and we had a lot of tears. She was very attached to the toy.”

Despite the pig being around five-years-old and no longer on sale in the Canary store, the Club decided to help.

Mr Fuller said: “Within 24 hours of putting out the post I had a message from a very kind lady called Denise Palmer who is a life-long City fan. She sent a picture of her pig and asked if it was the right one. She said that her 12-year-old daughter Bex had one and would be happy to let it go.

“At the same time Nathan Le-Moine from the football club’s retail team got in touch with me and said he had checked the warehouse and had found us a brand new pig which we could collect from the ground.”

Mr Fuller arranged to meet Denise ahead of City’s home game against Preston and explained that he was able to get a new pig from the Club. However she insisted that the family still took her daughter’s pig. He then visited the Canary store where staff kindly gave his daughter the new pig free of charge.

“Elise burst out crying she was so pleased,” said Mr Fuller.

The family thought that would be the end of the story, however the next day Mr Fuller received another message from Denise who said her son, Oliver, had found his daughter’s original pig whilst enjoying the same ride at Joyland.

Mr Fuller and his family travelled straight down from their holiday home in Cromer to collect it and return the donated pig to Denise and her family.

He said: “To think that the same people who donated the pig then found our original pig four days later is incredible.

“It just shows what a good community spirit we have got at Norwich. No one needed to help but it was so kind of Denise to offer and the Club went above and beyond to find a new one for Elise and really demonstrated what a family-friendly club it is and how important its young fans are.”

After a quick spin in the washing machine, Elise has once again been cuddling up to her original pig, with her new Club pig on standby for the future.